My understanding of TIMEZONE and DST in kernel configs was telling 
the kernel about the hardware clock.  I recently told someone to use
TIMEZONE and DST so their dual boot i386 could have the hardware clock set
for the other operating system in local time and not GMT like the 
default NetBSD kernel wants.  I don't think they are obsolete.

-- 
Phil Nelson
e-mail: phil@cs.wwu.edu
http://www.cs.wwu.edu/~phil